Recent Posts

Categories

Meta

Marya Maximoff

Well, this one isn’t exactly a new entry from X-Men Apocalypse, since she already appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past, but now we can be pretty positive about who she is. We’re talking about Ms. Makimoff, the mother of Quicksilverand of a yet unnamed little girl (possibly the Fox version of Scarlet Witch, but that’s still to be confirmed). With Magda being properly introduced in Apocalypse, this leaves “Ms. Maximoff” to be identified with Marya Maximoff, the other mother figure for Magneto‘s children, namely their adoptive mother (even if in the movie continuity she’s actually Quicksilver’s biological mother). In the comics she doesn’t have much of a role, but she’s worth mentioning nevertheless: let’s see together.

Not much is known about Marya’s early life, not even her maiden name. She was part of a group of Romany travelers, and she grew up moving mostly in the area of Transia. Only the Romanys dared to live in the woods area at the feet of Wundagore Mountain, which was said to be cursed and full of black magic (and that claim had actually its parts of truth, as the Elder God Chthon had been imprisoned under the mountain eons before, soaking the land with his magic, and the High Evolutionary had his secret citadel and lab built atop the mountain, so the place was crowded with his human-animal hybrids). When she became of age, Marya got married with Django Maximoff, a doll-maker from her same tribe; Django was also a renowned magic user from the tribe, since the wood he used for his dolls was taken from the trees that fed on Chthon’s magic. Not that this upset Marya in any way: she was a sorceress herself, member of an ancient Romany coven. Still young, Marya became pregnant, and soon gave birth to two twins, Ana and Mateo. The woman was truly happy with her family, but then something horrible happened, and her children died: it’s still unspecified what precisely happened to Ana and Mateo, if some kind of child disease or, according to some accounts, a wolf attack on the Romany camp; being it a way or another, the newborns were dead, and Marya’s family was distraught. With nothing else to do but to mourn their lost children, Marya and Django resumed their traveling in Transia, but when they approached Wundagore Mountain they found themselves face to face with an unexpected guest: the High Evolutionary himself, who had learnt of their loss. The superhuman geneticist had two children with him, Wandaand Pietro, the children of a powerful mutant, Erik Lehnsherr, and of his wife Magda: he entrusted the babies to the Maximoffs, asking them to raise them as if they were their own. Marya happily accepted.

Magda had abandoned her children to protect them from their father, who had become a murderous monster and didn’t know of their existence yet: to respect the last will of the children’s mother, Marya decided to keep for the twins the names Magda had chosen for them. She and Django raised the babies as if they were their own, and Marya truly loved them like she loved Ana and Mateo, giving to them all the love and the care she didn’t have the chance to give her children. The tribe managed to settle into a single land thanks to Django, who assured the tribe’s work to a miller in exchange of a large plot of land in his property. In this period, Wanda became old enough to be introduced to the coven, and Marya brought her to Lilia Calderu, the mother witch: at the presence of the entire coven, Marya included, Wanda was introduced for the first time to the secrets of the black magic known only to the Gypsy women of their tribe. From that moment, however, things became complicated: Pietro and Wanda started manifesting their mutant powers, and this increased the suspicion and the grudge from the rest of the population; the miller kicked the Romanys out of his land, and in every place they tried to settle sooner or later they received the same treatment. Plus, Django was quite concerned of letting Wanda learn the tribe’s secrets, since she was not their daughter, not a Romany as well, while Marya defended her right, even if it wasn’t a birthright (one of these conversations was overheard by the twins, who were obviously quite shocked in learning they were adopted). Pietro, wanting to help his family now that Django couldn’t find any job, used his super speed to steal from some villagers, but he only got scolded by Django, and disappeared for three days: Marya, anguished, looked for him along with Wanda, and when they finally found him they were able to re-conciliate… but the villagers had found out about the thefts, and they angrily attacked the Romanys, setting their camp afire. The twins managed to save themselves, but Marya was trapped into her caravan and burnt alive: she was however happy to know that her beloved children at least were still alive…

Marya Maximoff is a loving and caring woman, who happily accepts two babies abandoned by their mother as if they were her own. She’s an initiate in the local Gypsy coven, and she can use black magic to an unknown extent (anyway in a lesser form than her daughter Wanda or even her husband Django). A loving mother and a loyal wife, Marya is one of the pillars of her tribe and community, and one of the few bright memories left for the Maximoff twins.